B. 1967

The splashes of fresh pinks, blues and greens, yellow and whites create layers on the canvas as Rajnish employs a particular method. A meticulous method of mark making, structuring while various textures emerge through the process. The strokes of bright layers of pigments conceal the lurking forms and shapes of trees, huts, gates, fences, animals, humans, helicopter and bicycle.

She does not leave any part untouched, her diagonal brush strokes and kinetic motifs cover the entire surface. Her oil paintings therefore are the reminiscent of her pastel works. What is important in Rajnish’s works is the laboring part of it that she has embedded from the beginning years of her career. She began to paint in pastels from her college years and that technique is continued even in her oils. Her energetic brush strokes exemplify an emotive quality giving her works an expressionist quality.

Rajnish employs varied subject matters from interior spaces to landscapes and from figurative to more and more abstract. Over the years, her canvases have become more structured – sometimes vertically, sometimes horizontally. The tightly constructed spaces have become more lucid. Her works foreground the binary oppositions of representation and abstraction where there is an interesting confluence of spontaneity and a deliberation of thought process.

Rajnish Kaur completed her B.F.A (1988) and M.F.A from College of Art, New Delhi (1991). She has worked as Lecturer in the Painting Department, College of Art, New Delhi. She lives and works in New Delhi.